Coatesville school district gets hit with Right to Know requests, financial consequences

CALN – Rhoads & Sinon, former legal representative for the Coatesville Area School District, reviewed less than half of two years’ worth of right-to know requests sent to the school district, costing the taxpayers nearly 90 percent of the overall bill.

According to documents released by the school district to the Daily Local News last week, Rhoads & Sinon reviewed 12 RTKs from July 2012 to June 2013 and 25 from July to November 2013. Special outside legal counsel Conrad O’Brien, who was appointed last year to perform an internal investigation, reviewed 50 requests from November 2013 to March, costing the school district $14,152.

At the school board meeting in April, school board president Neil Campbell argued that public documents obtained by the school district were improperly used. He said the cost to review those requests was taxpayers’ money “that could have been spent somewhere else.”

Advertisement

“I understand the right-to-know requests and I know everybody has the ability and the right to ask for any information you want to have. That’s fine. When you get it use it properly. Use it for what it says and not spin it,” Campbell said at the April 22 meeting. “(The school district is) over $20,000 this year alone on right to knows reviewing and redacting information and I understand the law. Yes, you are entitled to that, but that’s $20,000 that could have been spent somewhere else.”

Campbell’s comment regarding the cost of reviewing and redacting requested information prompted the Daily Local News to file a request for a breakdown of all RTK billing from Conrad O’Brien and Rhoads & Sinon.

In those documents, information submissions were broken down by school year, law firm reviewing the information, the type of information being requested – ranging from business office, human resources, payroll, facilities and miscellaneous – and the status of the individual requesting information.

During the 2012-13 school year, the media did not submit RTKs to Rhoads & Sinon. Five community members, four business owners, two residents that reside outside of the school district and another school district requested information from CASD.

The media submitted 13 RTKs in the 2013-14 school year to Rhoads & Sinon. The remaining 12 were submitted by community members, business owners and residents outside of CASD’s jurisdiction.

During the 2013-14 school year, 18 requests were sent by the media and reviewed by Conrad O’Brien. Twenty-two community members, six business owners and others also submitted RTKs that year.

The Daily Local News submitted five RTKs to Rhoads & Sinon from September to October 2013.

Those requests include:

• The names, job titles, salaries and length of service for former superintendent Richard Como, former athletic director James Donato, high school head football coach Matt Ortega and high school principal Robert Fisher.

• Names, job titles, salaries and length of service for all school district employees working in the district.

• A complete list of school district issued cell phones, including the names of employees associated with those phones.

• The complete contract, including contract terms, length, and salary of Ellison while he was with Rhoads & Sinon.

• Revenues, expenditures, check registers, treasurer’s reports and student activities reports for April to September 2013.

In response to all requests, school district solicitor James Ellison indicated that a “legal review is necessary to determine whether the requested record is a public record subject to access under the law.”

The newspaper also recently submitted two RTKs currently being reviewed by Ellison under his new practice, Susquehanna Legal Group, LLC.

Two requests were submitted:

• The reporting procedures related to the discovery of drugs or hazardous substances found on school grounds.

• The status of three school district employees - part time school district police officer Claire Lang, Director of Elementary Education Jason Palaia, and Caln Elementary School Principal Mary Jean Wilson-Stenz - who were temporarily suspended in May for supposedly mishandling a heroin incident involving a 7-year-old Caln Elementary student.

Ellison responded to both requests informing the Daily Local News that the school district needs an additional five days to review the requests. The letter indicated the school district needs up to an additional 30 calendar days to respond with or without the information.

The documents on the right-to-know requests billing can be found online at www.dailylocal.com.

Follow Daily Local News staff writer Kristina Scala on Twitter @Scala_Kris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KristinaScalaDLN.